What The Shape Of Your Face Says About Your Sex Drive

In a new study, wider-faced men and women reported higher sex drive than people with narrower faces. (Shutterstock)

You may not realize it, but your facial structure can reveal a lot about your personality.

Past research has consistently found that men with shorter and wider faces are more aggressive, more prejudiced, more likely to deceive others, more dominant, and more driven to succeed compared to men with longer and narrower faces. This is even true for non-humanprimates, and among women this link is found for dominance, but not aggression. Furthermore, other people pick up on these facial cues, perceiving wide-faced men and women as more masculine, dominant and threatening.

Why would all these personality traits be related to this seemingly random facial feature, also known as facial width-to-height ratio (FWHR)? Because they are all thought to be influenced, at least partly, by exposure to the masculinizing effects of testosterone. Although data are mixed as to the exact timing of this exposure (in utero, at puberty or in adulthood), more testosterone generally means higher behavioral masculinity, dominance, aggression and also a higher facial width-to-height ratio.

Examples of measurement of the FWHR in faces with relatively low and high FWHRs.From Geniole et al., 2015, PLOS ONE

Now, a set of two new Canadian studies find that FHWR is also linked to several aspects of people's sexual psychology (sex drive, casual sex and infidelity), also known to be influenced by testosterone.

In the first study, 145 heterosexual Canadian students (52% female, 82% White, mean age = 22) currently in romantic relationships answered questions regarding their sex drive (like how often they experience sexual desire or how often they masturbate). They then had their face photos taken by the researchers (under identical distance, lighting, and backdrop conditions for all participants), and those photos were later carefully measured by two raters for width, height and some other facial features like cheekbone prominence.

The analyses confirmed the researchers’ hypothesis: Wider-faced men and women reported higher sex drive than their counterparts with narrower faces. This link remained even when other facial features were statistically controlled for.

A second sample of 314 students (57% female, 91% White, 93% heterosexual, mean age = 20) from a different Canadian university confirmed these findings regarding sex drive. This second study also asked participants about their desire for, attitudes towards and experiences with casual hookups and their expectations of future infidelity to a partner. The men with higher facial width-to-height ratios reported greater openness to hookups and a higher likelihood they’d be unfaithful to a partner compared to their narrow-faced peers. A link between FWHR and propensity for casual sex or infidelity was not found for the women in this sample.

Together with prior research on this facial feature, this study suggests that the facial width-to-height ratio, and our ability to perceive and interpret it, may be part of an evolved system that emerged long ago in our evolutionary past in order to help us figure out who may be dangerous vs. safe, trustworthy and faithful vs. likely to deceive or cheat on us, or more likely to stick around and raise babies vs. "hit it and quit it."

This is the first study to ever link FWHR to an aspect of human sexual psychology, so the findings need to be replicated in other samples and more diverse samples, including teens and older adults, non-whites, nonheterosexual and trans populations and using additional measures of sexual psychology before we can accept them.

We should also remember that even if there is some positive correlation between FWHR and these personality and sexual traits, that this correlation is far from perfect. Not every person with a wide, short face is likely to be violent, cheat, hook up or crave sex several times a day. Being aware of our perceptual biases is an important first step in correcting our automatic tendency to stereotype someone based on the shape of their face.

I am a NYC-based sex educator, researcher, and writer focusing on the links between sexuality and wellbeing. I hold a PhD in Developmental Psychology from Cornell University, and currently teach sexuality-related courses at New York University. My scholarly work has been pu...